


Litanies

by Tohje



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Attachment Angst, Code Angst, Don't copy to another site, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Mnemonics in space, Slice of Life, Somewhat resolved emotional tension, master/padawan relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19277692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tohje/pseuds/Tohje
Summary: He has a list of things the Code asks him not to keep.He doesn’t keep the things themselves, of course. He would never harm his master, or his master’s reputation like that. Others - younger ones - look to him, a padawan to imitate.He keeps the memories of them, those moments. A trained Jedi knows many mnemonics.He takes them out sometimes, only sometimes, examines them from every angle, reaches for detachment. Who knows, he might even achieve it one day.





	Litanies

**Author's Note:**

> Many people to thank. They were so encouraging when this...thing took completely over my brain. 
> 
> Wathgwen, always.
> 
> LuvEwan, for giving me the inspiration and that sweet, sweet validation. And holding my hand. :D 
> 
> antheiasilva, you were incomparable. This wouldn't have seen the light of day without you.

\---

Do not speak. My face sinks

In the clotted summer of your hair.

The sound of the bees stops.

Stillness falls like a cloud.

Be still. Let your body fall away

Into the awe filled silence

Of the fulfilled summer —

\---

 

Kenneth Rexroth, _When We With Sappho_

 

 

He has a list of things the Code asks him not to keep.

 

He doesn’t keep the things themselves, of course. He would never harm his master, or his master’s reputation like that. Others - younger ones - look to him, a padawan to imitate.

 

He keeps the memories of them, those moments. A trained Jedi knows many mnemonics.

 

He takes them out sometimes, only sometimes, examines them from every angle, reaches for detachment. Who knows, he might even achieve it one day.  

 

It’s an act of penance. It’s an act of discipline.

 

(It’s an act of reverence, of adoration. The discordance stridulates in the Force around him, faint but jarring. He is very careful, ensures that Qui-Gon is duty-bound elsewhere.)    

 

Obi-Wan being himself, it’s not that simple. There are distinctions, subsections and alternative ways to arrange the sensory/memory construct, safely tucked away behind his inner, more intimate shields. He is, after all, like his master had once observed, “terrifyingly organized.”

 

His voice had been fond, quietly amused, simply noting one of their many differences.

 

There are things of an honest innocent nature. Those, he thinks he could as well as keep, and nobody would look twice at them. A master is, without question or cause for suspicion, the most prominent character in every padawan’s life. Many experiences and lessons in life concentrate around them. Obi-Wan is no exception, more a textbook example.

 

It's those private, hidden pleasures, underneath the innocent things that he knows he must give up to the Force. Has been giving up to the Force since...well, certainly longer than he cares to count.

 

An innocuous thing, to know how his master enjoys his morning tea, and prepare it accordingly, if their schedule allows it. Qui-Gon isn't the tidiest person, but he's always composed. But when he sits down to the breakfast table, closes his eyes and breathes in the aromatic steam, letting it waft up to his face, there are little, visible marks of the nightly clutter. Every now and then, disheveled, unkempt hair. The lazy way he stretches his neck to the side, to stretch a crick. The curling of his large, blunt fingers around the cup, lightly. The languid pleasure after a good night’s sleep, something he rarely manages on Coruscant; it manifests in a loose, easy gracefulness in his body.

 

Those things tell him that his master is content, well-cared for, sometimes happy. The signs for a dutiful padawan that all is well in the world, that he performs satisfactorily and that their everyday life rolls on without bigger hiccups.

 

It's the desire to untangle that disheveled hair, not with the comb but with his fingers, to sink them in and trace the streams of silvery grey among the chestnut. It's the urge to put those same fingers on the side of Qui-Gon’s neck while he's at it, to check the strong vein, to feel the steady thrumming of warm, thick blood under his fingertips. To skim his hand down, along Qui-Gon's arm, uncurl his fingers around the teacup and hold his hand, large, scarred, dry, on both of his.

 

It's the want to burrow himself into that languorous body like he would crawl back into sun-warmed, rumpled sheets.

 

These utterly inappropriate _fascinations_ , and what they signify: these are the things he gives up, again and again, leaving behind only small dots in a litany. Memory aids.

 

“Are you going to grace my morning with your company, padawan, or do you have to hurry somewhere? This rotation is shaping up to be gruelling,” Qui-Gon asks, eyes still closed.

 

“Yes master, although I wouldn't go as far as calling the company of my morning breath a blessing. Dex overdid himself last night.”

 

“The Force grants us many gifts, if we learn to look past the surface,” his master hums.

 

 _Am I truly a gift to him?_ A dangerous, tempting thought, he knows. The master's approval, given appraisingly and from the distance of evaluation, is one of the few forms of the close connection the Code doesn't deny. Rare is the padawan who doesn't strive for it, who doesn't benefit from it to a certain degree. To read more into it would be a crecheling’s mistake.

 

***

 

His master is tall.

 

There are other ways to organize the litany. Structuring around the facts is another way, in addition to the seemingly innocent, kept things. Hard facts, a Jedi learns from early on, are actually quite rare in the Galaxy at large. But.

 

His master is tall, broadly but gracefully built, damn nearly unshakeable when he takes a stance. His position in the Force is the one of a seaside cliff: waves of iniquity and the suffering of the Galaxy crash around him without causing any visible erosion. They threaten to sweep Obi-Wan off his feet instead, if he doesn’t lean back on the sun-drenched, immovable rocks. Qui-Gon may seem austere at first, features cragged, but the cliff hides a myriad of lifeforms in its nooks, shelves and hollows. Wildflowers. Proud, lonely, circling seabirds.       

 

That is the fact. His master is tall, and things wash over him and circulate around him, are drawn to him, never the other way round. Obi-Wan finds it useful. Qui-Gon is easy to detect in almost any crowd. He commands the room without even trying, leaving opportunities of unobtrusiveness to Obi-Wan. Their opponents tend to underestimate him in the shadow of his master, to determine him less of a threat. All of these are facts, for him to take into account and make use of in the service of Light.

 

It’s what the facts _cause._ They make him want to twine around and climb. His master could - and had easily done so, in the past, when Obi-Wan had been careless and hurt and their pursuers close - pick him up and prop him up against a wall, cover him against it with his body. “Quiet,” he whispered, the smallest stir of exhale against Obi-Wan’s hairline. “Stupidly brave padawan, I know you hurt, but quiet now.” He had created a Force-illusion, redirected the thugs’ eyes and attention elsewhere from the dark alley. Obi-Wan had caught a whimper of pain in time.

 

The reconstruction of the memory doesn’t come easily; he spends hours on his knees after concussion passes but the mandatory recuperation time still drags on. He picks the yearning’s barbs from his skin, much like after wrestling with an especially stubborn spectre burdock in the Gardens.

 

His master is tall, and all of him is equally, harmoniously endowed. He knows this - how could he not, with cramped transportations, with their Order unconcerned with bodily modesty in the salles.

 

How could he not, after the brick wall and sheltering, and Qui-Gon’s tendency to plunge them into the impulsive wilderness retreats on a whim.

 

He has an image of his master, standing in the middle of the flowing, cold stream, statue-like, water streaming around the strong thighs. The bestrewed morning light, the sense of resting, restrained power in his body. Carrying Obi-Wan’s weight effortlessly before, untouchable now.

 

Some facts require swallowing down and meditation after meditation. They are safe only when put into a ritual, into a liturgy.

 

And these are the innocent things.

 

***

 

Audacious and wild things, they require something more intricate to stay put. The construction is more erratic. He buries them behind the winding paths leading to the orchard residing in his mind. Mind temple, the basic internal data organization technique they were taught, seemed too ostentatious to him.

 

And too clinical, considering that it’s meant for his master, in most cases.

 

The orchard is a place in the remote corner in his psyche, left to its own devices most of the time. The statues are corroded by the passing time, the fountain drips, the oi-oi and yarrow rows run rampant, bee-filled and ruinous. He tastes summer in his mouth every time he goes there in his meditation. A good place to bury memories too untamed to keep on the regular lists. He doesn’t have much time for the beautiful, luscious places in his life anyway; the same applies to the things he leaves there.

 

He calls this subsection the garden litany. Qui-Gon would chuckle, no, he would downright laugh at him, eyes crinkling, if he knew. His master sees him as a Core city boy through and through. It’s one of the reasons he insists on those retreats.

 

The Code speaks of attachments. It never speaks of what he should do when he encounters a thing as beautiful as his master’s hands in sleep. Large hands, capable of destruction, peaceful, curling. Obi-Wan gives the image up, again and again and again, until he crystallises it and buries it under the cypress hedge and leaves it there.

 

The Code speaks of desire. He adheres to the Code, he does, he _understands._ Still, it never speaks of what he should do when Qui-Gon’s body spreads across his brain as he lies down on his sleep couch after an exhausting evening in the courtyard. He lies there, forces his own body to stillness, contemplates the thin wall between their assigned rooms. They are passing time, waiting for a delayed transportation on a planet called Lucus after successful negotiations. The night hours trickle away until his skin feels too hot and sensitive, until he groans quietly into his pillow and lets his hand slip under the waistband. His own touch feels feverish, inadequate. He bites his lower lip, quietens down a bemused moan; he engages in this activity so irregularly that the sensation always comes as a surprise.

 

His master would taste like unrestrained summer. He would taste like clean sweat. Obi-Wan… Obi-Wan would lick the droplets from the bare back, defined muscles under his tongue. He would start from the nape, would move the long hair aside, would move down along the spine, open-mouthed, moist kisses.

 

His hand speeds up, the pumping motion from root to crown, and the twist right under the head; he likes that, he had forgotten.

 

He has so much of letting go and garden work ahead of him.

 

He would spend a copious time on lower back, mapping the scars, before he would dare to dip down and bite one of the cheeks. And Qui-Gon would, he would… he would groan, and he would turn, and he would pin him down, the same look in his eyes that he has when Obi-Wan exceeds his expectations. Like this evening, down in the courtyard, various court members as their audience, but his master’s eyes on him, instructing him, focusing on him.                                       

 

“Look at me, padawan,” he would rumble, slow, and Obi-Wan would buck under the warm hands, but Qui-Gon’s strength would keep him in place, under his master, against the mattress. “Don’t close your eyes,” Qui-Gon would command.

 

Obi-Wan’s grip gets rougher, faster, the twist sharper; he bites his other hand’s knuckles now to stay quiet, and Qui-Gon would...he would...lift him, both of their weights, and slide his other hand under Obi-Wan, to the cleft between, _there,_ and the blunt finger. Would push in.

 

Like no one has ever done. He would keep his eyes open, like his master asked.

 

 _Shields!_ his frantic mind screeches and erects them just in time, and then everything is heat and static, obliterating his sense of place and self. The only thing remaining is his master’s gaze. He mouths the name into the back of his hand.   

 

***

 

He sneaks to the shared fresher later, footsteps light and heart heavy. His master wouldn’t. Doesn’t. Ground back to reality. He should know better. He should respect the Code better. Qui-Gon took him back, again and again, and this is how he pays him back? Clings to this, to his heart's and body's wants like this, like he has never even heard of control and discipline?

 

Around him, the palace slumbers on, large windows open and the draft moving the curtains, the summer nights gentle here.

 

He stops, breathes in front of the small balcony, the stains of his defeat sticky and visible even in the starlight. In his mind, he retreats far away from the Lucus royal Estuary palace, and buries his hands to the soil in his mind, digs deeper, gets dirt under his nails. This useless, desperate thing, his failing, his truth, could at least make the herbs smell even stronger, the thickets and grove grow even lusher.

 

Maybe Qui-Gon would stop being worried about his fluctuanting connection with the Living Force then. It would definitely stop him despairing over Obi-Wan’s supposedly unwavering obedience to the Code. The ironies of gardening, who knew.   

 

He plants rosemary over the memory, marks a new spot in the orchard’s design, wipes his hands to his pants and surfaces. He goes to the fresher and cleans himself up methodically. He returns to the balcony, falls into mediation position gracelessly and banishes the fantasy without mercy into the Force. It jolts and rattles restlessly around him until he impels himself to serenity before he disturbs his master’s rest.

 

***

 

Tenets of the Code are taught from a young age. No possessions. It’s worthy and right not to cling on, not to suffocate things, places, other beings, but to appreciate them for a moment and let them pass. Everything - beauty, moments in time, emotions, belongings - is fleeting; for this special lesson, one garden back at the Temple is filled with abundantly blossoming cloud cherry trees.

 

Crechelings, eager to please and emulate, more often than not overdo it. Obi-Wan remembers a creche mate declaring that they would donate all their clothing to the orphans, for what use had Jedi for modesty, Force granting them everything they could ever need (they happened to hate socks especially, no coincidence). Offerings of a few personal toys were a common occurrence. Obi-Wan, struggling with his eating - cycles of uncontrolled prescience gnawed his appetite away - had eagerly offered his share of meals to the local food kitchen. The crechemasters, having seen all of it before, good-naturedly guided their charges’ desire to help and prove themselves to the other, less self-mutilating areas.

 

As their days on Lucus slouch on, honey-saturated, sultry days of the end of summer, their transport caught in a solar storm parsecs away, Obi-Wan returns to the habits of a much younger self. After his lapse the other night, he tells himself it’s time to step back. He can retire, can present his devotion as a sacrifice. Jedi belong to the people they serve; he should be able to relinquish his hold of his master as easily as he once rendered his supper portions.

 

He can’t expect to keep him anyway. Jedi serve people, and do that without temptation, without longing.                

 

It seems to work. Qui-Gon is a man of company, of connection. Beings are drawn to him, to his vitality, to his freely-given, close attention. Outside the Temple, he is rarely alone, if he doesn’t actively seek solitude. Obi-Wan pulls back, leaves his master to his strolls with the court advisors and his evenings in the great hall. People gather there for story telling, weaving and woodwork, children running under the tables, mouths and fingers purple from the oi-ois, giggling and shrieking, nothing like the serious initiate years he remembers. The large double doors of the hall stand open, for a mellow breeze to get in.  

 

He used to find some quiet corner, to sit and watch over his master, of course polite to those who sometimes seeked his placid company. Qui-Gon would meet his eyes at some point of the evening, nod a little, and they would retreat for the night.

 

Now he slips away before anyone notices. He is already asleep when Qui-Gon arrives at their quarters. He doesn’t meet his master’s eyes. How could he, Qui-Gon being as perceptive as he is? The mind orchard overblooms, the sweet-smelling dusk hanging over the branches. He avoids it diligently, but it bleeds into the real summer of this beautiful, cursed planet.

 

They both make his dreams heavy and fragrant, something he didn’t think dreams could even achieve.

 

His master comes in late one night. Obi-Wan wakes up to the light touch from his brow to temple, but before his brain kicks properly back online, Qui-Gon is already moving away, hanging his cloak on the back of the chair, large hands soothing the fabric slowly, contemplatively.

 

“Master?” his voice is hoarse from sleep, muddled.

 

“Padawan. I didn’t mean to wake you. You have been weary, of late.”

 

He has? He likes to think he has been as dutiful and attentive as always, but his struggling must show somewhere, he supposes. He still doesn’t possess the serenity of a knight, much less of a master.

 

“You always want to hide away from everybody when worn. You have been seeking solitude lately. Should I be aware of something?”

 

A few years ago, perhaps even a year, his master would not have merely asked. He would have invoked masterly concern and responsibility. He hasn’t minded, before; there isn’t much room in the pledge of an apprentice to hide things from a master. Qui-Gon has always granted him enough privacy anyway.

 

Now Qui-Gon smoothes the fabric in the darkness and doesn’t look at Obi-Wan.

 

“No, master. I can take care of it. I have just had a craving for solitary meditations recently.” It’s not a lie. The reasons are his own.

 

Qui-Gon stands still. His presence in the Force is still too, like the rivers surrounding the Estuary palace are lazy and calm, the strong undercurrents invisible to the eye.

 

“It came to me, Obi-Wan, that the Force might be preparing you, and especially me, for the lonelier times ahead of us. You haven’t needed me to untangle your thoughts and problems for a while now, but it only occurred to me tonight.”

 

What is his master --- Qui-Gon is talking about knighthood, Obi-Wan’s knighthood. The sudden spike of adrenaline wakes him up properly, and he raises himself to half-seated position with his hands. The light quilt falls from his shoulders. Qui-Gon never talks about this, and for years now, Obi-Wan has refrained from asking. Knighthood is a double-edged blade; his lifelong dream and conviction, and his surrender. He is quite sure no other padawan, a _proper_ padawan, feels this way, at some level is afraid of giving up his master more than their own Trials.

 

Not that he is ready for the Trials, not with these litanies filling every drawer, nook and corner in his mind, his private, worshiping liturgies, the orchard so rampant.

 

“I still have much to learn, master.”

 

A nightsinger calls from the open window, the sweet, lonely sound carrying in the balmy night. Qui-Gon turns his head to the sound.

 

“They have large territories. They spent much of their life alone, only seeking each other through song for the short periods of time. Folks here say the longer the singer has been alone, the more hauntingly beautiful the tune is.”

 

“I’m sure they don’t rate each other’s songs like that. The songs are meant to tell about  their own territory and strength and defence, that’s all.”

 

Qui-Gon moves finally, retires towards the small, separate sleeping alcove. “Well yes, padawan. Many beings are haunted by beauty and loneliness, and are, like you observed, creating meanings when there’s none besides basic instincts. Good night.”

 

Obi-Wan stays awake for a long time, listens to the avian creature warbling and whistling in the hills.

 

***

 

He snaps at the squabbling children, quarreling over a pull-toy spaceship that hovers about two feet above the ground. They were using their height and weight to their advantage, scaring the little one holding the string. All three look up to him, eyes huge on their soil-smeared, suntanned faces, the little one lets out a squeak, and then they are running as a pack, the toy bobbing dolefully behind them.

 

He lowers his eyes after he realizes what he has done, inspects his hands on his lap, taut, visible veins against the brown fabric.

 

When he raises his gaze again, resigned, Qui-Gon is watching him across the hall, a frown on his face. He steels himself; there’s no chance his master lets it slide this time. But the message arrives that their long delayed ship is docking in less than two hours, and is only under minor repairs before it takes off again, the company desperately trying to catch up the lost time. Official farewells must be conducted, the last ties between the rulers of the planet and the Republic affirmed in ritual as in contract. It’s a whirlwind, Obi-Wan rushing to their rooms to gather their meager belongings, leaving Qui-Gon to perform the last official ceremonies, and then all of a sudden they are standing on the _Fissure’s_ ramp, the late evening gustier than any other during their stay here.

 

Jedi’s home is the Force and the Galaxy. They don’t spend enough time in places for him to feel attachment, but he does feel more uprooted than usual. It’s a good, welcome feeling. It tells him the orchard is quieting, preparing for colder seasons as the summer of Lucus is left behind.

 

“You can smell the autumn in the wind,” Qui-Gon says, his chin raised, the once-broken, aquiline nose pointing headwind.

 

“I suppose we are leaving right on time,” Obi-Wan concurs.

 

Qui-Gon turns to look at him, something in his eyes that Obi-Wan doesn’t, after all these years, know how to read; the blast of the ship’s siren announces departure, and the ramp starts to slide in.

 

As they turn their backs to Lucus and walk inside, looking for their cabin, Obi-Wan doesn’t think for a moment that his master will forget.

 

***

 

The Council interrupts their travel back home. And then again. The ship changes to another, the mission changes to another, the planet changes to another; the people’s needs and coldness of space stay the same. Corruption, greed, neglect, privileges of the few. It’s an odd sort, but it’s as close as their lives ever get to a routine. Qui-Gon bickers with the Council, expects Obi-Wan to find simple solutions to complicated problems, offers a few, carefully selected words of praise when he succeeds. It’s life in the service of the Light, and Obi-Wan throws himself gratefully back in. No time for navel gazing and idle wandering. No time for horticulture, he tells himself sardonically.

 

The summer is a distant memory. He places Lucus as a dot on the liturgy, and leaves it at that.

 

He’s not as sure what to make of his master’s continued silence on certain matters. Perhaps Qui-Gon also felt that their period on the lush summer planet was more distressing than the master let on earlier.

 

In a brief space-travel interlude between their second and third mission, Obi-Wan probes the training bond discreetly, and is surprised to find his own end congealed. He swallows a frightened sound, and spends the next minutes distinguishing the fine threads from the tight, protective clump they have formed on his end. His master, exhausted, asleep on the undersized pallet, turns over and rolls his shoulders, sighing. A small smile plays on his lips.

 

He stares at the corner of Qui-Gon’s mouth too long. The cargo hold is suddenly cramped, and smells of rosemary.

 

He walks a short distance and repeats the sixteenth soresu kata among the cargo containers until his legs are shaking and he’s sweating profusely, something that shouldn’t happen with this kata.

 

He serves breakfast tea according to ceremonial rules next morning, and ignores the crew’s curious and leering gazes from the other side of the canteen. He prepares the last of his stash of matcha as minutely as possible in the scarce communal kitchenette, kneels next to his master’s chair, spins the cup three times clockwise, and serves it, head bowed, avoiding eye contact. His master takes it with both hands, tastes it so that his mustache touches the green foam, and nods his acceptance.

 

“I apologize for my behavior, master,” he says, and readies himself to rise. He freezes when Qui-Gon, breaking the ceremony’s course, places his thumb under his chin and lifts his face.

 

He could get up and walk away. Qui-Gon’s touch is light, not a grip holding him still.

 

“It’s only natural, I’m told. The need for privacy and space, independence. The bond senses it. It tries to prepare you.”

 

He doesn’t know what he wants to do. Scream? Beg? Confess? A Jedi does not. A Jedi is a flame of Light in the Galaxy’s dark cave, self-sustaining, bright, alone, taught for this since infancy.

 

“Thank you, master,” he says.

 

The clear blue eyes are warm but distant, like the canopy of summer sky far above. The thumb brushes his chin before letting go, his master’s thoughts somewhere else.

 

***

 

The memory of the touch follows him through their third mission. Pervita is a planet obsessed with water, cleanliness and orderliness, applying for the Republic; the result of not so distant, chaotic times of extreme droughts before their technology developed enough that they could start climate control. (“I wonder if they were shocked they got _you_ , master, and are just too polite to say it.” “Have you submitted your application for honorary citizenship yet, padawan?”)

 

It follows him through the endless, geometric parks and utilitarian, geometric towns and neat, geometric countryside as he flies the speeder on the long lasting inspection tour and reports back to Qui-Gon.

 

His younger self would have admired the order brought from chaos and suffering, the efficiency. He still does. He just finds himself wishing for a few more orchards running wild.

 

He should try to supplant the memories with the right order of things, he muses when he is finally back in the capital and their rooms in the very early hours of morning. There must be somebody else he has found fleetingly attractive, without the dangers of attachment. He unbuttons his leggings and checks his shields tiredly.

 

The want is messy, and tangled, and out of all boundaries. He wants it under his control, transformed, if he can’t get rid of it altogether. He crawls to the bed and lets his hand move under the quilt.

 

Faceless shapes from their missions, men and women. He is spent from his journey, listless.

 

A fellow padawan, who is not bad looking, he guesses, if you liked tattoos and an attitude.

 

Stream in the wilderness, the litany starts. Strong thighs in a cold water. His cock jumps in interest.

 

No. Not that. Back to the other padawan, brown, mischievous eyes and a cocky, knowing smile in the salle showers. Obi-Wan had blushed.                

        

Oi-ois, the litany continues. Qui-Gon’s broad grin of delight when children offered him oi-ois on Lucus, purple juice running down his hands. An aching, liquid heat pools to Obi-Wan’s groin.

 

No! Not. That. Something, anything else. How the water runs down the other padawan’s body, rivulets and droplets.

 

Brick wall, the litany doesn’t care, doesn’t even slow down. The protectiveness, the quick thinking, his body between Qui-Gon’s body and the rough surface, which lets him twine his legs around and push. The cherished body and mind, and a kiss full of contrasts, beard and chapped, soft lips.

 

His hold firms. A moan escapes, pathetic sound. This is his useless truth, this is his mistake; he wants a kiss from Qui-Gon Jinn more than anything, an impossible kiss of claiming and attachment. He hears himself panting.

 

The door opens.

 

“Obi-Wan? Something is wrong with your shields. When did you come back? Is everything…?”

 

Qui-Gon, in his night clothes, suddenly quiet, framed by the early morning light in the doorway. Obi-Wan knows what kind of picture he makes.

 

Time stands still.

 

He checked the shields, he _made sure_ … but he was weary, and apparently sloppy, and hoping for just a little more orchard. The tendrils have probably crept forward since Lucus without his knowledge, twisting and choking and creating a hidden disorder among the discipline, until the faraway part of the shields crumbles spectacularly and falls down. With the intensity of his attachment, and the closeness of their bond, it’s more than enough to reveal.

 

Qui-Gon vanishes from the door. The sound of running water in the kitchen.

 

He loses this now. He loses everything now.

 

He could stay in bed. He could never get up, actually.

 

It’s the same pull which, in the most desperate situations, when all strategies and plans fail, drives him towards sacrifice, towards disaster, that forces him up now. He can’t stand this, his master standing in the kitchen and him _not knowing,_ this horrible thing _not dealt with_ , no matter the cost or payoff _._ He straightens his boxers, grabs the nearest cloak and throws it on.

 

It’s Qui-Gon’s cloak, the one he took in for repairs weeks ago, ignoring his master’s good-natured protests. It’s ridiculously large on him. He feels shrunken, diminished, but that’s only fair, he decides hotly, already on his way to the other room.

 

The glass in his master’s hand is full of water so cold the glass sweats. 

 

“Obi-Wan. I can’t.”

 

He smells himself in the small space, the grime of the long journey, rosemary. The smell of his hands. The heat surges, all the way from his toes to his ears. To think that he is subjecting a revered master, his master, to these crude, low matters. He drops his gaze, mortified.

 

“No. Don’t.” Qui-Gon’s voice is grating. Oh Force, what he has done?

 

“I won’t stand you being ashamed when -” The full glass shakes, just a little, and his master places it on the counter. Inhales. “I thought the distance and disturbance were about your approaching knighthood. I shouldn’t have --- pried, I shouldn’t -”

 

Obi-Wan loses the thread of the one-sided conversation about there, because he raises his eyes cautiously, wondering about the unprecedented breaks, and notices.

 

Qui-Gon’s eyes are a bit wild, a bit haunted.

 

His master is not composed.

 

The realization chases all other thoughts and litanies out of his head, and what is left is odd, blazing silence. The acute sense only of the present moment, and Qui-Gon. He steps forward. Qui-Gon stops mid-sentence.              

 

A step, another, and he invades his master’s personal space. “Watch me. Come and watch me,” he breathes, his daring blasphemous, unimaginable.

 

“I can’t, padawan, I _can’t._ ” Qui-Gon’s eyes stay determinedly on the undrunk water, not on Obi-Wan.  

 

Not ‘won’t.’ Not ‘don’t want to.’ He can work around this. He can find an alternative. It’s what he excels at, what earns him his master’s scarce praise; his persistence at solving an unsolvable problem, in the field, in the classroom, on missions, during kata.

 

“You can. You watch me in everything else. If I’m as close as you say to my Trials, you can, if you want. You have my permission. You have so much more than only that,” he breathes, leans forward, feels the body heat. He more than half expects Qui-Gon to push him away with the Force.      

 

Instead, his master bows his head and buries his face into Obi-Wan’s short, bristling hair. “You don’t understand.” Qui-Gon’s words are almost inaudible. “I can’t. If I allow this, I won’t be able to -- to let go. I --- I’ll hinder you on the eve of your Trials. No padawan needs that, but the opposite.”

 

 _I won’t be able to let go._ He hangs himself on that. _He doesn’t want to let me go._

 

_No padawan needs a master who can’t let him go._

 

“It will even out. We always have, even against impossible odds.” _This. You. Us._ He shifts his weight to the balls of his feet, leans forward just a little, into the body heat. Qui-Gon notices, of course he does, having trained him in katas countless hours.

 

“The Code -”

 

“This doesn't belong to it yet. I refuse to give this to the Code yet.” It's a ruse; he has no way around the Code. He knows it waits out there, patiently, but it has no place in here, in the now. It is driven a short distance away with everything else.  

 

“After your knighting, things will look different. When I’m not your master anymore, you will look at this -”

 

“Not differently. Watch me. Be with me in this. I want you to have it.” _Force, let me give him this,_ he begs the unbeggable.   

 

Qui-Gon makes a low sound deep down in his throat, not quite a growl but close. He runs his hands alongside Obi-Wan’s flanks through coarse fabric, up and down. “ --- any idea how long, how precious ---” The words disappear into Obi-Wan’s hair.

 

He stills Qui-Gon’s hands with his own. The cloak falls open.

 

He leads them back to his bedroom. The furniture, trees and canal behind his window, everything on this planet is about straight lines and symmetry and functionality, but it doesn’t matter. He hears the bees, smells the herbs, and the shadow of grove reaching for the morning light is a wild, untamed shape.

 

Just a little more orchard, little more unrestrained summer in the organized Galaxy, before it’s, eventually and inevitably, cut down and fixed, put under control. Like things should be, in the Code.

 

He lets the cloak drop on the floor and lays down, on his back. Qui-Gon sits on the side of the bed. It feels oddly like his master is waking him from a nightmare.

 

 _If he looks away, I’ll lose courage._ Obi-Wan locks his eyes to his master’s when he eases the boxers down and off. His cock springs up, half confused, half aroused, the head red and swollen from his earlier attention.

 

He hears Qui-Gon’s breath catch in the quiet room. Qui-Gon is watching him, but it is Obi-Wan too who is allowed to see things for the very first time.

 

He extends his hand clumsily, like in a heavier gravity, grazes his nipple, pinches it between his thumb and forefinger. He hisses through his teeth, shortly, sharply. His other hand starts to play in his pubic hair, teasing. Usually he is not this generous with himself, he thinks, fractured, before he curls his fingers around the base of his cock.

 

The sky-blue eyes are on him, not distant, not somewhere else.        

 

He pumps once, experimentally, twisting almost to the point of discomfort. He is rewarded with the same low sound, the not-growl.

 

“Please,” he says nonsensically, because he doesn’t know what he is allowed to ask, because he _banished_ this. “On...on Lucus, I wanted you to…” So many things, all unattainable, he thought.   

 

There’s a weight on him, solid, measured. Then there’s so many new sensations that his hand stops from pure surprise.

 

Qui-Gon’s lips against his. His master. Kissing him.

 

At first, there’s no movement, just a possibility for him to draw away. Just softness and scratchy, tickling moustache.

 

“You think,” Qui-Gon murmurs, “that you can give me _this_ , and I don’t sink like a sack of stones. What I know, you strip away.”

 

Obi-Wan makes a sound, a weird sound, a sound of happiness, but in the shape of a sob.      

 

Qui-Gon catches it with his mouth. Then there is a slide, and heat, and Qui-Gon tasting wonderfully like Qui-Gon and quite a bit like a last night’s sleep and negotiations over the hookah pipe, and a gentle nibbling, asking for entrance, and then there’s _tongue._

 

After that, everything goes hazy for a while.

 

When he comes back, he doesn’t recognize himself, the noises he is making. Is this him, shaking and moaning into his master’s mouth in the quietness of the early morning?  He thinks himself observant, controlled, attentive. This...this need to _show,_ to purely _react,_ it’s not something he normally -

 

“Don’t. Let me see, let me hear,” Qui-Gon whispers against Obi-Wan’s collarbone, moist breath and a trail of kisses towards the juncture. His shields must be dripping again like a broken fountain and he’s shivering. How he is so undone from so little really, just kisses, Qui-Gon must think -  “Privilege. Beautiful,” into the skin of his throat, more breaths than sounds.

 

“Off. Your shirt, off,” he manages, encouraged, and the weight on him shifts, retreats. “Always hoarding my clothes,” Qui-Gon mutters while towering over him, but obliges nonetheless. Obi-Wan knows an opportunity when he sees one; he wraps his legs around the thighs, and gives Qui-Gon’s lower back a tug with his crossed heels. His master comes back down, gracefully, indulging him. Large hands frame Obi-Wan’s face, mirroring how Obi-Wan’s legs are encircling Qui-Gon’s waist. And then, _then_ he is arching up into that broad, scarred, grounded body before he realizes what he is doing, because there’s long hardness, still clothed but unmistakable, meeting his own.

 

The sound he makes is embarrassingly loud in the sleeping building. He freezes for a second, but then Qui-Gon grunts, and kisses him again, and this time the kiss is not asking, but somehow demanding and giving at the same time. Qui-Gon moves his hips, a sinuous roll.

 

Obi-Wan forgets the embarrassment.

 

“What was it you wanted, on Lucus?” Qui-Gon asks after a long time and blink of an eye. His voice is lower than usual, brogue prominent, a tone Obi-Wan has never heard before. He nips the skin just below Obi-Wan’s chin between his words; the bites are maddening. Obi-Wan gasps for breath, tries to get his tongue back under his control.

 

“Your fingers. In me,” he slurs, his voice even more unrecognizable to him than his master’s.

 

It’s Qui-Gon’s turn to freeze. “Do you - has nobody ever?”

 

“No. Just myself. Wishing for you instead.” He closes his eyes in front of the confession.

 

Qui-Gon is still, terribly still, both here and in the Force.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes!” he huffs. The desperation colors his voice like it never should, he knows it’s not the Jedi way. Things like desperation and want are not for them, but he _knows_ something else too, something inescapable: that the circumstances leading them to this moment will never repeat themselves again, there will be only one Lucus, one Pervita afterwards, and his master won’t allow this again, _can’t_ allow this again for them to survive. _Obi-Wan_ can’t allow this to descend on them again.

 

_No master needs a padawan who can’t let him go._

 

He doesn’t know how to verbalize it, but the bond opens and quivers and he feeds it with his desperation, his understanding and determination. He hears Qui-Gon’s sigh as much as he feels it against his skin.

 

“The gifts you bestow upon me.” There’s smile in the voice; beneath it, desire. The Force moves in the room, a soft clink of the buckle as his utility belt sails into Qui-Gon's hand above Obi-Wan’s head.

 

“I’m generous that way,” he drawls, the wordplay something to resort to and take refuge in.

 

The blue eyes soften. “That you are. And so much more.”

 

He swallows and swallows - _a gift to him, after it all -_  before Qui-Gon takes pity on him and kisses him, distracts him until there’s a tap of fingers on his left knee. “Spread your legs a little.”

 

There are no liturgies strong enough, no orchard feral enough in the Galaxy for him to keep those words as a memory. They will burn through everything. The whole morning will burn through everything.

 

His master is too careful, the finger longer and thicker than his, slickness, breach inside, the feeling of fullness, growing gradually. He moves, writhes, staying still is a literal impossibility, deeper, it hurts but in a good way, he didn’t know something like that could exist. He impales himself further under those darkened eyes.

 

“Gods,” faintly somewhere above him. “Calm now, my gift.” A stretch, flex, Qui-Gon is searching for something, and then, a brush.

 

The world whitens out.

 

His yell is too loud, breaking the peace of the empty streets and silent canals behind his window.

 

It’s so good, so much, a welcomed, longed-for intrusion. And still not enough. If this is the only time he is allowed. If this is the only time his master allows this for himself.

 

“All of you, master, Qui-Gon -” his greedy babbling is cut by another skilled brush, another electric, white shock of pleasure.

 

The not-growl is definitely a growl now.

 

“You don’t - Obi-Wan, you don’t know what-”

 

“ _Yes!”_

 

He keens when the finger withdraws from him with an obscene sound. After that, nothing. He turns his head.

 

His master looks lost, graying long hair in a wild disarray, hands hanging on his sides. It stops Obi-Wan in his tracks like nothing else would.

 

“I don’t know what this will do us. I can’t risk you. You are…”

 

“Evens out, master,” he reminds him quietly. He will not beg. He will not. “Everything we went through. There is balance after everything. This is no different. I...I just want to give you this. I won’t ask for more.”

 

“How can _I_ not ask anything more after this? You’re irreparable, and I’m still asking more.”

 

_What happens to a Jedi who asks for more?_

 

“I trust in the Force, master, above both of us. I trust in this moment.”

 

It’s the right thing to say, like truths you hadn’t realized before the present moment often are. Qui-Gon smiles, sweeps down. “Always lighting the path ahead of me,” he murmurs, cradles Obi-Wan’s face like it’s something precious.

 

“Repayment for all the clothes I have confiscated,” he quips.    

 

Laughter, scattering like the Force’s blessings into the room, and it’s the most natural thing in the Galaxy for Qui-Gon to turn them over and guide Obi-Wan with his hands to straddle him, let him lean backwards onto his hands. His laugh turns into a surprised moan; to sit on his master’s lap, feel his cock under him, straining the fabric. The empty, sensitized place inside him throbs.

  

“Easy, easy,” Qui-Gon sounds slightly out of breath, either from the laugh or other things. “You have control this way, if you want to stop, or decide it’s too much.”

 

For one short, mad moment he nearly bursts into giggles again, because nothing has ever been more out of his control than this moment. It’s free falling headfirst into the Force, it’s all the green, fragrant things growing outrageously outside their designed places.      

 

It’s free falling too, taking Qui-Gon’s slicked cock inside him, but in slow-motion. It’s too big and he is too tight, too inexperienced in this, but he eases down, dizzyingly slow. His master’s hands clench and unclench on his back, on his sides, soothing him, but other than that, he doesn’t move.

 

Something gives in inside him, relaxes, and he slides all the way down with a long, surprised exhale. He stays there, panting; so achingly full, but the pain recedes with every passing breath until it’s more of a background glow.

 

Qui-Gon's body tenses as he suppresses the instinct to meet Obi-Wan halfway. Obi-Wan places his hands - smaller, more slender, similarly calloused from saberwork - on Qui-Gon’s hard stomach, feels the tremor and sweat the restraint causes.

 

“Let me see too,” he breathes, raises himself, pushes back down for the very first time.

 

And his master, unbelievably, does what his audacious padawan asks of him, throws his head back, tendons on his neck standing out, gasping. He cups Obi-Wan's cheeks with his hands and changes the angle just a little.

 

The enormous difference the smallest of motions makes.

 

The white heat ravages him, blinds him to everything else but Qui-Gon’s responses and the feel of his cock inside him. He shouts out, starts a rhythm, fast. He hears a curse, he thinks it’s Mando’a, but he can’t be sure. He has never forgotten a language he learned before.

 

Qui-Gon meets him, thrust for thrust, and the head of his cock _hits_ the spot inside Obi-Wan this time, repeatedly, and he forgets any other language exists than this, between them.

 

His orgasm disintegrates him when his master looks at him like he is about to step over the edge of the cliff, groans his name, closes his eyes, and shakes and shakes. Everything in him convulses around it, collapses inwards, earning a final shout from Qui-Gon, joining his.          

 

***

 

Silence and light fill the room.

 

He is piecing himself back together, lying on Qui-Gon's chest. The distant burn of his thighs, from exercise. The more insisting, irritated burn inside him, hidden, secret. Sweat, semen, the glorious smell of them together. Surprisingly soft chest hair under his cheek. He nuzzles the hair, the smell, eyes closed.

 

The boulangerie outside his window is opening its bright-striped awnings. He can hear the faint squeaks of the crank.  

 

Qui-Gon plants unhurried, lingering kisses into his hair like he has no intention of ever stopping and getting up.

 

***  

 

The mission continues. He can’t, doesn’t want to, keep his master from the people; there is so much suffering and need.     

 

He doesn’t expect that they will talk about this, after the mission is over, after they are back in the Temple. The Jedi don’t have words for this. The Temple doesn’t have a place for this.

 

The Code still forbids him this; planets turn on their axes, and beings do horrible and unbearably kind things to each other. Obi-Wan Kenobi has broken the Code, willingly, for attachment. He needs to meditate on this like he needs nutrition. Some things simply are what they are.

 

He doesn’t put this morning, this shattering, remaking morning on any list. He will give it to the Force if it seems necessary, or if Qui-Gon deems it necessary.

 

The moment is beyond measure; it wouldn’t fit, it would refuse to take shape anyway.

 

His master’s eyes find him, unerringly, fleetingly, when they leave the rooms and step into the day. The Living Force is drawn to Qui-Gon like he is magnetism.

 

He absentmindedly contemplates turning the orchard into a winter garden before he focuses on the mission again. Or perhaps he will give them up altogether, the mnemonics.

 

He could, now.


End file.
